Hollywood: Yell `Cut!' Sooner

Wedding Crashers should have left the party at least 15 minutes sooner.

The Brothers Grimm, at 120 minutes, was a fairy tale in desperate need of a shorter ending, if not a happier one.

The Island stretched on to become at least a peninsula.

The Longest Yard may have been the longest one-joke movie in recent history, though it faced fierce competition from one-joke wonder The Aristocrats.

While Hollywood executives tear out their hair implants wondering why box-office revenues are in a slump, they might take a glance at their watches. This year's feature films often suffer from a severe case of the run-ons, frequently lasting 15 to 25 minutes past the endurance of an increasingly impatient audience.

It's only a rumor that the 2006 Academy Award for film editing will stay on the shelf for lack of entries. But poorly executed movies that overstay their onscreen welcome contribute to a general sense of mediocrity wafting from the beleaguered film industry.

Bad timing even happens to good movies.

At 2 hours and 20 minutes, it seemed Batman Begins never would end. Most critics considered it an inventive thriller, and it killed at the box office. But its status was marred by slack pacing, and it easily could have landed at a taut 100 minutes.

Comedies also became never-ending stories this season. The formula for bright, snappy humor has shaken out to about 85-95 minutes. Make 'em laugh, and move on. Instead, Bewitched crinkled everyone's noses at 100 minutes, and felt longer. The Bad News Bears remake was an insufferable 113 minutes, 11 minutes longer than the original to squeeze in all that mindless profanity.

The best argument for cinematic brevity? The emperor-sized hit March of the Penguins. Luc Jacquet rolled 13 months of footage, yet trimmed his masterwork to a short and sweet 80 minutes of smooth documentary. Grateful families everywhere have rewarded him with nearly $60 million, making it the second-biggest documentary of all time.

Consumer behavior expert Kirk Olson doesn't blame all the Hollywood slump on length, but he calls it a contributing factor. He even tosses out for scrutiny the smash Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith, at two hours and 26 minutes, in which George Lucas scrambled to tie every loose end before giving up his franchise.

Ten minutes in line for a ticket. Twenty minutes in a concession queue, staring at a price list of $4 for pop and $6 for popcorn, Olson noted. Then 10 minutes of trailers, and five minutes of advertisements.

"When the movie is 20 minutes too long on top of that, then the whole moviegoing experience has deteriorated," said Olson, who studies consumers for the Minneapolis-based consulting firm Iconoculture.

Length is only a minor complaint, of course. Great movies can be as long as they want.

Two of the best movies so far this year are well over the two-hour mark, The Constant Gardener and Cinderella Man.

It's just that in a year of questionable quality and economic worries for the movies, time seems another example of self-indulgence by filmmakers who ignore their audience.

If some movies insist on being a disappointment to us all, at least let them have the courtesy of getting it over with early.